John Roberts’ gay cousin to attend hearing

An openly gay cousin of Chief Justice John Roberts who wants to marry her partner will be in the room during this week’s Supreme Court hearings on Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act, and she predicted her relative will “go in a good direction” on the case.

“He is a smart man,” Jean Podrasky, a 48-year-old accountant from San Francisco, told the Los Angeles Times. “He is a good man. I believe he sees where the tide is going. I do trust him. I absolutely trust that he will go in a good direction.”

Text Size

-

+

reset

She will be attending the hearings alongside her partner of four years, Grace Fasano. Podrasky said she usually sees her cousin only at family gatherings and has no knowledge of his opinions about gay marriage. But Roberts knows she is gay, she said, and she hopes to introduce him and Fasano this week.

Podrasky is sitting in a court section reserved for Roberts’s friends and family. Podrasky went through Roberts’s sister, Peggy, and the justice’s secretary to get the tickets. Roberts is aware his cousin will be in attendance.

Podrasky expects the court to strike down Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California.

While Podrasky said she doesn’t know if having a lesbian family member impacts Roberts’s thinking, a Pew Research Center poll released last week found 32 percent of those who became supporters of gay marriage after opposing it did so because they knew someone who was gay.